


Have You Any Wool?

by euphorbic



Series: Angel of Cities [10]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 10:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphorbic/pseuds/euphorbic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>His Power has the angriest curiosity Charles has ever been witness to and when his will to violence is aroused no part of him is not under its jurisdiction. He wants a reason not to destroy them, because as far as Erik is concerned, death is mere Dissipation; nothing to fear.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Erik has a way with creative recompense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have You Any Wool?

**Author's Note:**

> Going to try to make it easy to navigate in chronological order soon. _Have You Any Wool?_ is preceded by _Heat Lightning and Distortion_ , which will be up in a few days. For now, this part comes after _The Abyss Looks Back_.

               Charles hears the helicopter and thinks nothing of it: more than seventy floors up in a residential high-rise in the heart of Bashan helicopters are only less numerous than birds and clouds. He switches on the radio, already set to his preferred news station, and goes about his waking ritual of preparing a mug of tea.

              He listens with half an ear to the progress reports and political strivings of other major city-states such as Pyongtaek, Uppsala, and Delphi. He’s waiting for word of Alexandria and the Library to come up; it seems as though Alexandria’s media are controlling the story ruthlessly.

The water is coming into a roiling boil when he hears the lead in to the story, right on the heels of Betsy Braddock’s interpretation of her Power’s control of weather patterns. Before he imprinted with Erik, Ms. Braddock had always amused Charles with her seventy percent accuracy rate, but now it is a source of fascination.

              Charles renders two scoops of breakfast tea unto his teapot and turns the element off. As he pours the kettle’s water into the pot, he follows the crisp report on the crisis at Alexandria’s famous library. He hopes to hear word of Emma, but he doesn’t hold his breath figuratively or mentally.

              _\--The chain explosions at The International Library at Alexandria took place last night, but few details have emerged. It is known that the epicenter of the detonations have all been in the vicinity of the Linguistics section of the Library._

_Linguistics Director, Emma Frost, has not been accounted for, nor has the city’s foremost Power, the Alexandrian, been in contact with any of the city’s council members since the disturbances._

_An incomplete list of Powers summoned into the area last night has been circulating various news feeds. Among those on the list are Azazel, The Cyclops, Storm, as well as a few less well-known Powers--_

              Charles snorts. Erik is certainly a lesser-known Power: he is singularly disinclined to speak with anyone that is not Charles. His socialization is an ongoing struggle for both of them. Charles hopes Emma’s Power will attune with Alexandria soon and shake off his entropic spiral: for Alexandria’s sake, but also that he might still provide the socialization advice he had offered after several glasses of wine at the Ball.

              Shaking his head at the continued racket of the helicopter outside, Charles wonders how much information the authorities actually have on the explosions at the Library and how much they are releasing to the news agencies. The thought is interrupted as the helicopter’s too-large shadow suddenly slides across the floor-to-ceiling windows. The windows vibrate and reverberate with the nearness of the engine and propeller. The high volume and rapid shake rips through Charles on a visceral level.

He tries to keep his shock and fear from jostling at Erik’s awareness. Despite his efforts he feels the last few members of his Power’s swarm stir from their medical duties. He hopes Erik is not prodded awake in turn unless there’s a new emergency to consider.

              Tea and news reports forgotten, Charles runs to the sliding doors that lead out to the wide balcony. The helicopter is far too close to the building, he thinks. Is there a fire he doesn’t know about? Has there been an accident? Reaching out and reading the pilot wouldn’t be a breach of his Telepathic Hippocratic oath in this situation. He reaches out with his mind even as he slides the glass aside.

              What he sees when he steps into the sun’s merciless morning rays shocks him. The media helicopter is indeed close to the building, specifically it is close to the east side of the building and the cameraman is aiming the camera into Erik’s bedroom. From the pilot he plucks the truth of their presence: they’ve heard Erik was injured in Alexandria and they want film for a story.

              Alarm and fury electrify Charles in an instant and it is the hammer pulled back and struck on the bullet that is Erik’s awareness. As angry as he is with the helicopter, Charles’ anger powers fears for those within. He pelts back into the loft and races for the bedroom to close the curtains and to soothe his Power. Erik has done awful things to people that threaten Charles, and he doesn’t want a repeat.

As Charles runs across the floor on sure feet, he moves from the pilot to the helicopter’s photographer and looks through his eyes. He sees Erik shoot to his feet on the bed, throwing pillows and sheets aside. He is gloriously naked and there is no hiding his long, muscled body or the open injuries that still mar him; all accrued in Alexandria. The cameraman registers the injuries in his zoom and the Power’s coldly furious expression.

              Charles feels the man’s fear and knows just how right the man is to feel it, but he doubts the man is fearful enough. _You must leave immediately. Erik is a very private Power and you are deeply unwelcome._ He leaves the cameraman with the impulse to destroy his footage to protect himself and then jumps to the pilot.

Even as Charles is running into the bedroom to pull Erik down into their bed, before he can touch his skin, Erik’s right hand shoots out and grasps at empty air.

              The helicopter’s stabilizing propeller seizes, followed quickly by the main blades. The helicopter’s body, however, instantly spins violently in the opposite direction of the main propeller’s normal direction: Erik has only stopped the propeller, not the engine that spins it. The pilot is thrown against the helicopter’s controls. The cameraman’s fate is more immediately dire as he’s flung outside.

              “No! Erik!” Charles shouts, terrified that the pilot and the cameraman will both die. He has a sense from Erik that he doesn’t care if they do. “Save them both!”

              Erik’s hair is whipping about his head in an unseen tempest; his field is as violently agitated as he is. Waves of anger and violent intent radiate from him and Charles shudders involuntarily at the incandescent rage. The hair on Charles’ arms and the back of his neck dance on end. Erik snarls and the fingers of his right hand splay wide. The helicopter’s spin terminates. With his left hand, Erik gestures slowly from his hip up to his chest, as if bidding a wave to rise.

Innately, Charles knows what Erik is doing; he is lifting the cameraman up from a fall deadly even before the sudden stop. As Erik does so, Charles whips his rumpled shirt from his torso and ties it around Erik’s narrow hips.

              “Neither I nor my shell require binding,” Erik hisses incredulously as Charles pulls the knot tight.

              “Raven has issues with modesty, too,” Charles sighs with long-sufferance rather than offense. “Modesty is just another foible of the human race. Please set them down?”

              Erik tilts his head to the side, none of his rage bleeding away, but under tight reins. “They upset you.”

              His Power has the angriest curiosity Charles has ever been witness to and when his will to violence is aroused no part of him is not under its jurisdiction. He wants a reason not to destroy them, because as far as Erik is concerned, death is mere Dissipation; nothing to fear.

              Charles finds it appalling that someone could die because he was feeling protective over Erik. He rests one hand on Erik’s feverish flank and sends his understanding through the periphery of swarming metal. _I was upset with them for filming you while you slept, but it is not a mortal offense. Put them down._

              The truth is: Powers do, and Erik can and will, kill when sufficiently provoked. Charles vividly remembers the woman whose hand Erik broke when he noticed her pick pocketing in the subway. Powers answer to no mortal authority but their city. Bashan has yet to penalize Erik for his tendency to corporal punishment and humans are too afraid to try. And if corporeal punishment doesn’t damage his connection with Bashan, Charles can only assume the city doesn’t mind.

              _Calm your mind, Erik._ _Put them down and rest._ He follows up the request by tapping into his deep affection for Erik. He would rather project calm, but he can’t fake something he isn’t feeling when it comes to his Power. He can’t find the right pathways to take in Erik’s mind to release calming hormones, either. He sometimes wonders if Erik even _has_ those.

              Dissatisfaction passes over Erik like a particularly malevolent cloud, but he acquiesces. He pushes both hands toward the wide windows. In response, the helicopter and the hapless cameraman sweep through the air. They descend slowly to the top of a business high-rise across the metropolitan chasm.

              Charles brushes over both their minds. The pilot is vomiting from sheer anxiety. The cameraman dropped his camera and worries that he may have hit a random pedestrian far below, but is even more upset that the feed back at their station still needs to be destroyed. Disappointed, Charles tweaks his prior suggestion that the cameraman only delete the files if he can get away with it.

              Turning himself out of their minds, he looks up at Erik and finds his grey eyes on him. The cuts and bruises have not visibly healed in the short time since Charles left their bed but at least his torso is no longer gaping open. When he squints, Charles sees the impression of jewel-tone beetles pinching the edges of Erik’s torn flesh together between their mandibles.

              “Lay down,” Charles says and Erik hesitates only a few moments before he compromises by kneeling amongst the pillows and sheets.

              “You can’t fool me, Erik,” Charles scoffs softly. “You’re exhausted. Go to sleep.”

              Erik shakes his head, his prodigious anger keeping his back straight and eyes open. “The _k’vasim_ have never threatened you like that before. And they’ve never come close to me like that without command, not while I slept.”

              Sighing, Charles sits on the bed next to Erik and wraps his closest arm around his shoulder and pulls back. Erik doesn’t give until Charles communicates his intent that they lie down together. They fall back against the sun-warmed sheets. Charles begins to pull the sheets out from under Erik and rebuilds the nest of bedding he had left Erik in only minutes earlier.

              “They’re the media,” Charles explains. “Moira says they’re trying to get in to ask questions about Alexandria. They probably know you were there.”

              “These media forget their place. I would lay a seal on their mouths if it were within my power,” Erik snarls. Even exhausted, flat on his back with his knees in the air, Erik can be terrible. “Were he not entropic, I would ask ------ to Confound them all.”

              “Would that really be permissible?” Charles asks and presses his moist lips to Erik’s slick forehead. A few tendrils of Erik’s hair are plastered there with sweat and flutter weakly. Charles picks them off Erik’s too-hot skin so they do not distract him.

              Erik’s eyes close, his forehead wrinkles in confusion and consternation. “Maybe it _is_ within my power…”

              “You are conveniently sidestepping my question,” Charles accuses, but Erik’s eyes are closing and his magnetic field pulses as he reaches out with his power the way Charles reaches out with his mind.

              As weak as he is, Erik barely manages to follow the building’s steel skeleton down to the ground where he senses a congregation of zippers, cameras, and phones. They aren’t what he’s after.

              Charles’ eyes instantly widen, he grabs Erik’s bicep and lets loose a strong verbal, “No!”

              Regardless of Charles’ censure, Erik fuses every metal cavity filling, every metal set of braces, and every dental bridge he can find. Power expended and vengeance spent, he relaxes against the mattress. “Baa, baa, black sheep,” he whispers as he relaxes into sleep. “Three bags full.”


End file.
